Romans 8
The great climax of the letter's theological argument: the Spirit, adoption, the groaning of creation, predestination, and the unanswerable who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Summary
Romans 8 opens where Romans 7 ended. The chapter 7 cry — who will deliver me? — receives a full answer. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The Spirit of life in Christ has set the believer free from the law of sin and death. God has done what the law could not do, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to condemn sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in those who walk according to the Spirit. The chapter then develops the theology of the Spirit at length. To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. The believer has received not a spirit of slavery leading back into fear, but the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs — heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.
The middle of the chapter opens outward to creation. All creation groans and labors in the pain of childbirth, waiting for the revealing of the children of God; the believer also groans inwardly, waiting for the adoption of the body; and the Spirit himself intercedes with groanings too deep for words. Then the famous sequence: God works all things for good for those who love him — those he foreknew he predestined, called, justified, and glorified. The chapter closes with the great rhetorical cascade: If God is for us, who can be against us? He did not spare his own Son — will he not give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge? Who is to condemn? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Paul lists ten possible adversaries — tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, death, life, angels, rulers, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth, anything else in all creation — and answers each with the same declaration: in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
- Romans 1Chapter 1 is the opening of a long letter to a community Paul did not found and has not yet visited.
- Romans 2Chapter 2 is the turn in Paul's argument.
- Romans 3Chapter 3 is the hinge of the letter's first movement.
- Romans 4Chapter 4 is Paul's exegetical demonstration of justification by faith, built entirely from the figure of Abraham.
- Romans 5Chapter 5 opens the second major movement of the letter (chapters 5-8), which draws out the consequences of the justification argued in chapters 1-4.
- Romans 6Chapter 6 opens with Paul's most pointed rhetorical question: Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? The question follows logically from the last verse of chapter 5, where he said grace abounds where sin increases, and it is the objection he expects.
- Romans 7Chapter 7 addresses the role of the law in the new life.
- Romans 8Chapter 8 is the climax Paul has been building toward since chapter 1.
- Romans 9Chapter 9 opens the three-chapter meditation on Israel — the hardest sustained argument in the letter.
- Romans 10Chapter 10 continues the argument of chapter 9 but shifts from divine sovereignty to human responsibility.
- Romans 11Chapter 11 brings the three-chapter meditation on Israel to its resolution.
- Romans 12Chapter 12 opens the practical movement of the letter with the word therefore, gathering everything from chapters 1-11 into a single imperative.
- Romans 13Chapter 13 contains the verses that have generated more controversy in the history of Romans' reception than any other passage in the letter.
- Romans 14Chapter 14 addresses a concrete dispute in the Roman church.
- Romans 15Chapter 15 continues directly from chapter 14.
- Romans 16Chapter 16 is the longest closing greeting in any of Paul's letters.